Killed With Kindness
by adamolupin
Summary: Voldemort has won and Harry is in a catatonic state, Hermione and Ron are there to take care of him. So why are they in comas? All is not as it seems. Rated T just to be on the safe side.


**A/N:**_ Holy testical Tuesday! I'm not doing romance or humor! I like reading the angsty stuff (sometimes), but I'm not too into writing it so this will probably be the only one I write. I have no idea where this came from other than my mind thought it up drifting off to sleep. Thanks again to the loverly hal for the beta!  
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It always hurt to see him like this, never mind that it'd been nearly a year and she visited him every day. "Ron's doing well," she went on. "He's got another baby on the way. At the rate he, his brothers and Ginny are going Hogwarts will only be full of Weasley's." _If_ Hogwarts ever re-opened. War had raged for a year, bloody and brutal, felling the bravest of the soldiers who were almost always on the front lines. Then Harry went off to fight Voldemort.

Her grin was half hearted and fell away completely when she reached over to brush his bangs from his forehead. "You need a haircut," she murmured softly. Harry sat in his chair staring out the window of Grimmauld Place, as unresponsive that day as he was a year ago after Voldemort had won and shredded Harry's mind in their final face off.

"I love you," she whispered, learning forward and holding his hand.

"How is he today?" Ron asked from the doorway, his heart clenching at the sight of his two best friends.

Hermione shook her head, but gave Ron a rueful, if watery, grin. "Better today I think." She said that everyday.

Ron sat next to Hermione and took Harry and Hermione's free hands. He didn't come quite as often as Hermione, every other day and only for an hour or so. His three children, ranging in ages from one to four needed him now that Luna had died in the fighting.

The world tilted momentarily, images formed and bled away then reformed behind his closed eyes. There was a brief moment of pain and then Ron was sighing, squeezing Hermione's limp hand, seemingly oblivious. "I can't keep doing this," he murmured looking over his two best friends, laying side by side in the catatonic state they'd been in for a year since Voldemort had won in an overwhelming victory against the Ministry's aurors and the Order. Everyone had thought Hogwarts would have been the final battle field and everyone was right. Harry never even had a chance to fire off a hex before he was felled. Hermione, standing behind him holding his hand had caught a glancing hex and dropped before she could even raise her wand. Voldemort had looked on with glee.

For a year Ron had kept watch of his two best friends in Grimmauld Place, kept safely hidden away from the Death Eaters that swarmed over England. And for a year Harry and Hermione had held hands.

Ron rubbed his hands over his face and moved away from Hermione to sit next to Harry. He spoke to one of them on alternating days and on Sunday he left that day to himself. Today was Tuesday and Harry's turn to hear the news. "You should see it out there mate. It's a mad house. Complete insanity. The Order was shattered when you and Hermione were cursed, but it's not dead. There're a few of us left, scattered in sleeper cells around the country. Doesn't stop the Weasley's from procreating though," he added with a wry grin.

"Everyone asks about you two. You're still a symbol of hope to the ones without any," he continued in a murmur.

He sighed and slumped in his chair. "Luna says hello. She's pregnant again, did I tell you that? Remus . . . Remus still hasn't gotten over Tonks's death. I'm afraid he'll eventually end up in here with you two. Everyone still loves you and Hermione. We want you to get better, we want you to wake up."

The world dizzily tilted on its axis again, the pain becoming more intense as he concentrated on the good news. This was the truth, this was what he wanted. Everything focused sharply again, jerking him back to the present. "We miss you," Ginny whispered looking over the bodies of the three unconscious friends. "Please come back."

The screams outside were getting louder. Patients that could run were stampeding past along with healers, medi-witches, and visitors. A loud explosion, muffled by four floors of thick wood and brick, rocked the foundation of St. Mungo's. Ginny seemed to hardly even notice.

"Ginny! Ginny, we have to go!" Tonks cried urgently from the door way. "Voldemort's making his way through the ground floor. St. Mungo's is defenseless. We need to leave NOW!"

"I'm not leaving them!" Ginny sobbed, clutching her brother's free hand. His other hand was wrapped tightly around Hermione's hand whose other hand was wrapped tightly around Harry's. They had been like that for a year. The healers had to conjure a large enough bed for all three of them since no spell, hex, curse or charm could pry their hands away from each other.

"Ginny! Please! If we don't leave now, your fate will be theirs."

"Then let it!"

Tonks hurried into the room and wrapped an arm around the younger girl's shoulders. "Ginny, Ron, Hermione and Harry would be most upset and heartbroken if they ever knew that you stayed and were killed because of them. Please. If you love them, you'll leave with me."

The world tilted again, a sickening lurch and reality intruded. The pain he felt before became overwhelming. He felt as though his soul was being _crucio_'d into tearing itself apart. "Noooo! NOOOOOOOO!" he shrieked, an unholy noise that rose and fell then rose sharply into a high pitched note that faded to a soundless scream. He had been winning! He had won! He had just seen it! It was only in the last nanosecond of his life that he realized that he'd been deceived and those realities had not existed, were in fact lies and that Harry Potter had won again. In a burst of virulent green light, his soul, burdened and strained by the love so evident between the three, shattered into a million tiny pieces.

Time sped up then slowed back to a normal pace before stopping all together. At the edge of the nearby Forbidden Forest, birds found their voices again, crickets chirruped uncertainly, and a lone grasshopper hopped away. The wind blew gales then was still, sweeping away the smells and sounds of war. Time found its breath again and started back up revealing a leveled playing field, its pawns, bishops, rooks, and knights limping and cursing, crying and groaning, finding the dead, helping the wounded and saving the living.

Harry opened his eyes and slowly turned his head to look over at Hermione and Ron on either side of him, each holding one of his hands. He felt as though a Muggle lorry had run him over followed by a full parade complete with elephants and lots of marching bands with ill playing children.

Ron groaned next to him and Hermione stirred on Harry's other side. "What happened?" she moaned softly. "And why do I feel as though I've been run over by a lorry _and_ a parade?"

Lord how he loved that woman. "I think we killed Voldemort," he replied with a shaky voice.

"Did it work?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, I think so. I guess you really can kill 'em with kindness," Harry joked.

Hermione and Ron groaned in tandem for an entirely different reason than their aches and pains. "If this is post-Voldemort Harry, I'd rather have you scream at me and have great rows again," Ron retorted, slipping his hand out of Harry's and rolling away to slowly sit up on his hands and knees.

"Ron. You do realize you just said 'Voldemort' without wincing, shrieking, grimacing or fainting right?" Harry said while Ron made a slow and unsteady ascent to his feet.

Ron looked down at him with a faintly disgusted look. "Bugger off. I'm going to find something to eat, something to drink, and somewhere to sleep in that order," he replied limping slowly away like an aging geriatric.

The edges of Harry's consciousness were becoming fuzzy, but he fought off the overwhelming need for his body to shut down and sleep. He sat up slowly, every bone and muscle in his body aching. He stood the same way Ron had, hands and knees first then legs and feet. Hermione rolled onto her side, her body already succumbing to the exhaustion of the battle and the past year. Harry wanted nothing more than to curl up next to her, but he forced his legs to move.

He found Voldemort thirty feet away; the magic and sheer malevolence that had sustained him for three years was gone leaving his unnaturally made body to rapidly fall into decomposition. It was a disgusting sight, but one that Harry forced himself to watch. _I'm not a murderer. I'm not a murderer_, he told himself. _Veterinarians do it all the time. I was only putting down a rabid animal. _It was with determination and resignation that he kicked Voldemort's wand away from his hand and snapped in two with his foot.

Harry limped back to Hermione and lay next to her with a sigh. She instinctively curled up to him and he let himself fall into unconsciousness. So long as Hermione was next to him he allowed himself to stop giving any more thoughts to Voldemort.


End file.
